Posted 11/18/09 at 06:21:26 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Many online commenters try and compensate for their lack of insight into the subject at hand by summoning their ability to enliven even the most vapid discussion with a highly stimulating cocktail of profanities. But not everyone can fully relish this amazing ability as not everyone possesses it. The practitioners of this colorful art are often persecuted by the prim archpriests of insipid internet discussions.

An anonymous commenter paid with his job for what was an earnest attempt to breathe some life into a discussion on a newspaper’s site. Last Friday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a blog post titled “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? And did you like it?” One anonymous user replied with “a single word, a vulgar expression for a part of a woman’s anatomy.” But his terse reply was deleted within one minute of being posted (probably for being way too brief). The obdurate commenter returned to repost his single-word comment, only to have it deleted once again.

But the paper’s director of social media, Kurt Greenbaum, who had posted the concerned article, managed to track down the anonymous poster using the WordPress e-mail alert that accompanies every comment. The alert included the commenter's IP address, which was found to be from a local school.

“About six hours later, I heard from the school’s headmaster. The school’s IT director took a shine to the challenge. Long story short: Using the time-frame of the comments, our website location and the IP addresses in the WordPress e-mail, he tracked it back to a specific computer. The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the spot,” Greenbaum wrote in a blog post on Monday. Was it right on the paper’s part to pursue an anonymous commenter? If yes, then what is the point of allowing anonymous comments? Have your say without the fear of getting fired.

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Posted 09/10/09 at 01:25:37 PM by Paul Lilly

As newspapers and other media struggle to come up with a plan to remain profitable in today's online landscape, Google may have the solution: Micropayments.

According to a document Google submitted to the Newspaper Association of America, the search giant is hard at work on a micropayment platform, which it plans to offer "to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year."

"The idea is to allow viable payments of a penny to several dollars by aggregating purchases across merchants and over time," Google wrote. "Google will mitigate the risk of non-payments by assigning credit limits based on past purchasing behavior and having credit card instruments on file for those with higher credit limits and using our proprietary risk engines to track abuse or fraud. Merchant integration will be extremely simple."

Google went on to propose a revenue sharing model similar to the Android Market, which takes a 30 percent cut of the revenue. It also brought up the possibility of publishers syndicating their content on third-party sites and sharing ad revenue.

Much more on the proposal here and here (PDF).

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Posted 05/09/09 at 02:58:53 PM by Justin Kerr

Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is ending the great newspaper debate by going on record and letting everyone know, “having a free newspaper website is a flawed business model”.  When Murdoch was questioned yesterday during a conference call with reporters and analysts about online subscriptions he replied simply “We’re absolutely looking at that. The current days of the internet will soon be over."  Many would question the wisdom of this, but in his defense Murdoch points out The Wall Street Journal which has enjoyed massive growth in their online subscriptions division.

It anybody’s guess at this point whether or not this approach will work for mainstream news, but one thing is certain, the status quo can only end in bankruptcy. Many within the industry have described online news websites as “trading analog dollars for digital cents”. Dwindling  advertising revenue  has been compounded by the global recession and many wonder how much longer newspapers will be able to hang on. Several have already bit the dust and with so many other great alternatives, one wonders what if anything will solve their financial woes.

Is it too late for Newspapers to charge for online subscriptions now? Or is there still time to wind back the clock?

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Posted 03/20/09 at 04:56:01 PM by Andy Salisbury

Being a native (and current inhabitant) of the Pacific Northwest, I’m very used to seeing the Seattle PI around. The giant iconic globe above their building and the fluttering pages used as makeshift blankets for the homeless are all too common, but it looks like those days are officially over. The Seattle PI (known as “The PI” to Washingtonians like myself) has printed is last edition, and has become exclusive to the Internet.

The PI’s swap from print to electronic news is something of a landmark though, because this makes it the largest American newspaper to make that leap. Plus, with so many newspapers closing down and others in danger, this move will be closely watched by the entire industry.

“We clearly believe we are in a period of innovation and experimentation, and that’s what this new SeattlePI.com represents,” said Steven R. Swartz, the man in charge of the entire operation. “We think we’ll learn a lot, and we think the Seattle market, being so digitally focused, is a great place to try this.”

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Posted 09/11/08 at 02:15:33 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Google is currently pursuing an aggressive strategy of continuous, unabated expansion. Most people depend heavily on Google search for their online research, but Google is not resting on its laurels. After adding tools like Google Scholar and Google Book Search, the company is all set to make another welcome addition to the list of its research tools. The company plans to digitize newspaper archives.

It has enlisted the help of newspaper publishers for the digital newspaper archives. “Not only will you be able to search these newspapers, you'll also be able to browse through them exactly as they were printed—photographs, headlines, articles, advertisements and all,” Google’s product manager Punit Soni claimed in a blog entry. Google will initially concern itself with only U.S and Canadian newspapers.

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